. >> host: this is the communicators program, our guest is alan merten, president of george mason university, and jill aitoto is joining in the questioning. dr. merten, let's look at it from the student's perspective. can you get a college occasion without having your own computer today? >> guest: definitely not. either your own computer or access to computer. in our case, the students don't have just one computer, they have multiple computers. their world today, the world of a college student, even before, this computer is a device that helps them communicate, and it helps them in so many different ways. it is not something separate from who they are, it is what they are. they are constantly in communication with people. i think the universities in the past, some of them made mistakes by giving all the students the computer. >> host: y? >> guest: each different student has different needs, different wants, what you want to do is encourage them to bring their computer or computers with them to school. some may like one set of software and another may like another set of software. this idea t

our guest this week is alan merten, the president of george mason university. can you get a college education without having your own computers today? >> definitely not. i would say either without having your own computer or having access to a lot. in our case, students do not just have one computer. they have multiple computers. their world today, the world of a college student the computer is a device that helps them to communicate. it helps them in some many different ways. it is not something separate from who they are. it is what they are. they're constantly in communication with people. i think in the past, some universities made mistakes by giving all the students a computer. different students have different needs and wants. you really want to encourage them to bring their computer or computers with them to school. some may like one set of software and another, me like another set. it was a mistake to have a homogeneity of devices. >> what do students expect from the university when it comes to technology? >> the first thing they expect is a secure, rel

george mason university president -- university's president, alan merten, m&a, on c-span2. >> how is c-span funded? -- monday, on c-span2. >> donations. >> i do not know where contributions come from. >> how is c-span's funded? america's cable companies created c-span as a private business initiatives, no government m&a, no government money. >> and now we did no government mandate, -- no government mandates, no government money -- no government mandate, no government money. >> and now, our program. >> good morning. good morning, everyone i m&a director -- good morning, everyone. i am a director. before i turn at our program over to our moderator, i have just a few brief announcements. first, i would like to recognize the sponsors of today's breakfast. we have six great companies with us today, and i would like to tell you a little bit about each of them. first, we have to light -- deloitte. next, another group where users can proactively identify and recover from a death threats. next, we have ibm, blue dogs clients develop value through greater efficiency, -- we have ibm, with clien

george mason university president alan merten on the role of higher education and training information technology professionals. monday on the communicators on c-span2. joining us now for a discussion of if anything and everything. ron, and lilnda, she is a political correspondent for the christian science monitor -- that is lilnda. so, the obama family goes off for a week of fun. there will begin to run ads in that local market. would you make of this? guest: it shows two things -- the president never truly goes on vacation. he can put on a good show of being at the beach. he does not have to turn on his tv. he can to net this out. president obama is pretty good at controlling what he pays attention to. he manages his own the time. host: here is this headline that obama tackles the health care reformers. he has been trying to do that all week. how is he doing in this critical area? guest: it shows how far behind they have gotten in this fight. i think they're really taken off guard. they should have been out in front. these things have not just popped up in the past week. we have been

. >> host: alan merten is president of george mason university, jill aitoto is with nextguv. >> thank you for having me. >> the communicators airs in prime time each monday night at 8:00 eastern, 5:00 pacific. if you missed any of this morning's broadcast with george mason university president aitoto -- alan merten on educating information technology work force, you can see it again on c-span2. >> coming up the main new report on the economic effects of rising health-care costs. an economist with the rand corporation will at how labor costs, deployment and productivity of being affected by employer sponsored health-care plans. coverage begins at not -- 1:00 eastern on c-span. now a news conference on health care with a group of anti-abortion activists who give their views on the legislation now making its way through congress. speaking first is albedo king, the niece of mark licking jr. the african-american now. director on priests for life from the national press club. this is about half an hour. >> we are here today while congress is on break because we as african american leaders a

. >> alan merten from george mason university, tonight on the communicators. >> how is c-span funded? >> private donations. >> the taxpayer. >> grants and stuff like that. >> donations. >> contributions from donors. >> how is c-span funded? america's cable companies created c-span as a public service, a private business initiative -- no government mandate, no government money. >> now singer, songwriter, an actor need just talk about living with diabetes. -- nick jonas talking about living with diabetes. from the national press club, this is about 30 minutes. >> good afternoon. welcome to the national press club. i am president of the national press club and a reporter for " usa today." we are the world's leading professional organization for journalists and are committed to what future of journalism by providing informative programming and journalism education and fostering a free press worldwide. for more information about the press club, please visit our web site. on behalf of our 3500 members worldwide, a like to welcome our speaker and our guests in the audience today. i would als